Another Jones & Shipman 540P Surface grinder post

[Pawcu]

A few weeks have passed since my last update. I have tested the machine a couple of times (mostly to show it off to my friends and family ). I did get the remaining pieces installed:

After I installed the table splash guard, i realised it was a bit worse for wear so I decided to give it a lick of paint in situ... in hind sight I probably should have given it a coat of primer first Will see how it holds up after use:

I started noticing that it started leaking from where the motor for the head power feed mounts...

Upon consulting with the manual I deduced that the oil seal must have gone bad:

After struggling a bit with getting the dog clutch mechanism off from the shaft I managed to remove the housing that contains the seal:

The culprit:

I was lucky enough that my local bearing and seals supplier had a direct replacement for it - which was actually surprising considering it was imperial. Anyways luckily it went in without too much drama and haven't seen any leaks again so far.

Some of my automatic oiling parts and fittings arrived as well in the meantime (all of these parts are off AliExpress).

I opted to install the pump and distributor on the back as that is where I had most space:

Some of the of the other fittings (I'm still waiting for some angled fittings to arrive - these will be installed in certain areas where a straight fitting would be too bulky):

 

[Pawcu]

I have 8 oiling points in total that I plan to switch to automatic lubrication
- 1 above the head lead screw
- 1 in the gearbox below it
- 2 in the horizontal shaft for the head feed
- 2 near the hand wheel for the head feed (I seem to have an extra one because of the power feed clutch mechanism)
- 1 for the saddle lead screw
- 1 at the rear of the saddle lead screw

There are 2 more which are on the hand-wheel of the saddle but I won't be able to install the automatic lubrication as they spin together with the wheel.

The current zerg/zerk? fittings are mostly some weird thread that is close to M10x1 but not exactly. You can force cross thread the new fittings in (mostly because the fittings are brass) - i've done that in the past on the lathe but I wanted to do it correctly this time round.
I decided to tap the holes to M10x1. Tried to be extra careful not to get as much 'swarf' in the holes. Used oil to get the swarf to stick and every couple of turns unwind and suck as much up as possible using a vacuum. After a lot of trial and error I found that the best way (when possible) was to put a piece of tissue at the bottom to catch most of the swarf and then suck it up using the vacuum.
There are 3 of the oiling points however which had a different size thread. The one on top of the head lead screw (which originally had an oil cup) I just drilled it and tapped it for M10x1 (very simple to do especially considering that the cover comes off). Fitting installed:

Another one was the one at the back of the saddle lead screw - this I also drilled and tapped to M10x1 - I did this when the saddle was still off so I had better access and could clean it well before assembling - I haven't fitted the fitting here yet as I would like to try and install an angled fitting if possible so the oil pipe comes to the side rather than going up:

I also had another oil cup on the horizontal shaft for the head traverse - unfortunately I don't have a clear picture but it's this one here:

I believe this one was 5/16-18. Since this one feeds directly on top of the shaft I didn't want to drill it a larger size so I opted to create an adapter to M5x0.8 (I bought a couple of M5x0.8 oil fittings as well). This gave me a chance to practice a bit on the lathe and mill. Luckily I have a set of cheap Vevor Imperial tap and dies which came in handy for the imperial outside thread. I don't have a lot of pictures of the process but I did take one picture while i was cutting the hex faces:

Finished product:

Not going to lie, I wished I had a smaller lathe to be able to work on smaller parts like this xD

All installed with the fitting:

I installed the metering units I got to try them out:

Metering units have different flows and I'm not an expert on them (I only learned about them when I was restoring my Bridgeport) and different companies have different numbers (like Bijur). Since I got mine from Aliexpress I tried to follow their instructions. The ones I am using are rated from 1 to 5 and unless I'm mistaken each increment in number is double the flow. I tried to use the manual to get an understanding of what flow to get and basically opted for DTC1 (or flow 1) for the majority of the oiling points. However for the 2 oiling points near the hand wheel for the head feed I opted for DTC2 and finally for the saddle lead screw I opted for DTC3 (as this one is the only one that is oiled daily according to the manual).
I gave the pump a couple of 'pumps' and immediately noticed that a lot of oil is coming out from the DTC3 and 2 and obviously not a lot from DTC1 points which is a bit concerning - kinda makes sense though because most of the pressure is relieved by the DTC3 and thus not a lot goes to the others. I have since ordered a few more metering units (two DTC1 and one DTC2) to be able to play around and see what works best.

 

[Pawcu]

The main body has a drain plug for the excess oil/coolant/gunk etc that accumulates under the saddle. For some reason they put this on the side next to where the hand wheel sits:

It's a bit cumbersome to access once all the accessories and saddle is installed but what I really didn't like is the fact that the oil just drains down across the body and makes a mess everywhere. Now granted, this is a tool and it will get dirty but I wanted to at least give it a fighting chance and reduce as much oil spills and 'stains' as possible. The bolt is 1/2-20 so I decided to machine an adaptor for it so I can connect a small 1/8 NPT valve which then connects to a hose so I can drain it easier (at least that's the theory - I have no idea if this will work or if it will gunk up immediately)

Simple enough part:

All installed:

Time will tell to see if this works well or not.

 

[Pawcu]

In the meantime I have also been slowly working on the coolant tank in between the other smaller projects mentioned above (mostly because I've been dreading the work on it and trying to avoid it like the plague!)

Just as a reminder this is the current state:

First order of business was to remove the pump (easier said than done). Unfortunately everything is really rusted and seized up:

At first I tried to remove the pump from the plate itself but immediately realised that the retaining nuts on the bottom where spinning freely and i couldn't get a spanner in place and undo them at the same time on my own at least. While looking underneath I realised that there were 4 more bolts that hold the whole plate where the pump and the contactor sits - these weren't visible from the top because of all the pieces of rust/paint and gunk that were on top of them.
Unfortunately they were rusted allen bolts... so my attempts at using an allen/hex key were futile as this started spinning inside them.
Tried heating them up and spraying them with WD40 had not effect either - apart from filling the garage with the sweet smell of death...

So I decided to weld M10 nuts on top of them so I can use a socket and get more leverage. The heat from the welding will also help them free up a bit.
The front 2 (the ones near the opening for the contactor) came out with little to no drama and were very easy to access.

The back 2 however weren't as easy. there isn't a lot of room to work with the pump and the divider in place. I had to use a long nose plier to position the nuts and because I couldn't see properly I wasn't always pointing the gun at the right place - almost welding blindly. Moreover because of the rust the welder had a hard time to get a good contact and start the actual welding. I also had the nut snap on me twice for each bolt as well because of the poor contact the first time.

To make matters worse, both of the bolts at the back started spinning whatever rusted threaded insert had at the bottom and wouldn't come out. As @Smouser correctly told me once - Violence always works. At this point I was losing my patience. The inserts at the bottom were really thin and I couldn't get a proper grip on them even with locking pliers (granted my set are a bit crap). Moreover, I couldn't properly fit a grinder and either way I would be working a bit blindly because of how the tank is set up. On one side I managed to rip one out by literally hammering on the bolt/insert from the bottom with a heavy mallet. The other one was a bit more sturdy. Thankfully however this was the last bolt so in a fit of frenzy I got my car impact gun and started undoing the bolt from the top while pulling with all my strength upwards on the pump (and thus the bracket). Effectively what I was doing was using the bolt/insert to drill it's own hole out. Thankfully this worked and I finally managed to get it out:

The bottom of where the coolant pump used to sit:

Even with the pump/plate out, the nuts holding the pump were too seized to use a wrench... so out came the grinder. Pump removed from plate:

(To be continued in another post due to number of images)

 

[Pawcu]

2 of the bolts I couldn't reach easily with the grinder disc because there were a bit further in that what the radius of the disc. I was thus cutting the nut at an angle and wasn't doing the proper pressure and the disc instead of just cutting was also rubbing a lot which mean the bolts got really hot. Unfortunately I realised a bit too late that red hot bolts and rubber housing don't mix too well... who knew?

No biggie, can easily sort it out with a bigger washer.

The hose on the pump was very stiff so I had cut it off so I can work easier on it. The hose was using a crimped fitting so I had to dismantle the fittings to be able to replace it. I knew that i needed to be careful so I do not break the plastic. Obviously trying to undo any of the fittings was for nothing and I couldn't use heat as otherwise I would end up damaging the housing further (see I learn from my mistakes). Apparently I only have 1 braincell and that was focused on not putting heat into the fittings because I had the really smart idea of clamping the pump to the work bench and going full Ugga dugga with the car impactor on the fitting to remove it:

Great success... idiot...

What I should have tried doing was clamp the pump on the elbow in the vice and then try to use the impact (this way the forces are going on the elbow itself not on the plastic housing....(to be honest this still wouldn't have worked as I tried this afterwards and it still didn't want to come undone).

This elbow was really seized on the plastic as well - I managed to mangle it up using a wrench and still not remove it:

It was only when I applied a little bit of heat that I managed to slowly remove it.

At this point I really started questioning whether I should proceed with the restoration of the coolant tank and pump. I have another similar pump in the Bridgeport which I will 99.9999% never use but I don't really want to rip it out of there and would like to restore this. I decided to take it up as a challenge and attempt some plastic welding.
I needed to first clean the pump and broken piece really well as it was really dirty - used degreaser liberally and then also dunked it in the USC for final cleaning.

In the meantime I set to create my own plastic welder. Basically used a 100W soldering iron, removed the tip and put a 10mm bolt which I ground the head off for more control. In hindsight I should have used a bigger bolt and reduced it down on the lathe to 10mm as the threads made for poor thermal contact:

I first started by tacking the piece in place:

As you can see there are a lot of gaps of missing plastic which I filled slowly as best as I could with zip ties as filler material. To help with the heating of the tip I used a blowtorch from time to time to get it red hot and quickly melt the plastic. The other side was a bit easier as there weren't a lot of gaps and I managed to feather it in better:

The bottom also had a missing chunk so I had to fill that all up as well. To make sure that bond is strong enough I also embedded a piece of steel/aluminium mesh (not sure on the material). The end result isn't super pretty but I guess it gets the job done:

To make sure that it doesn't leak and also help with the strength I gave it a coat of 2 part epoxy - not really confident with the product I have but it was what I had laying round:

 

[Smouser]

Awesome work.

Really nicely detailed too.
It puts my rush job to just get my J&S 540 working to shame

 

[Pawcu]

Awesome work.

Really nicely detailed too.
It puts my rush job to just get my J&S 540 working to shame

Thanks appreciate the kind words although I have cut quite a bit of corners on mine as well. There are some things I wish I did better like give it a proper paint job. But it will suffice for now. Will hopefully get some time to continue working on it this weekend and I'll try and post another update as well and not wait too long!

 

[Seadog]

I have 8 oiling points in total that I plan to switch to automatic lubrication
- 1 above the head lead screw
- 1 in the gearbox below it
- 2 in the horizontal shaft for the head feed
- 2 near the hand wheel for the head feed (I seem to have an extra one because of the power feed clutch mechanism)
- 1 for the saddle lead screw
- 1 at the rear of the saddle lead screw

There are 2 more which are on the hand-wheel of the saddle but I won't be able to install the automatic lubrication as they spin together with the wheel.

The current zerg/zerk? fittings are mostly some weird thread that is close to M10x1 but not exactly. You can force cross thread the new fittings in (mostly because the fittings are brass) - i've done that in the past on the lathe but I wanted to do it correctly this time round.
I decided to tap the holes to M10x1. Tried to be extra careful not to get as much 'swarf' in the holes. Used oil to get the swarf to stick and every couple of turns unwind and suck as much up as possible using a vacuum. After a lot of trial and error I found that the best way (when possible) was to put a piece of tissue at the bottom to catch most of the swarf and then suck it up using the vacuum.
There are 3 of the oiling points however which had a different size thread. The one on top of the head lead screw (which originally had an oil cup) I just drilled it and tapped it for M10x1 (very simple to do especially considering that the cover comes off). Fitting installed:
View attachment 483924

Another one was the one at the back of the saddle lead screw - this I also drilled and tapped to M10x1 - I did this when the saddle was still off so I had better access and could clean it well before assembling - I haven't fitted the fitting here yet as I would like to try and install an angled fitting if possible so the oil pipe comes to the side rather than going up:
View attachment 483925

I also had another oil cup on the horizontal shaft for the head traverse - unfortunately I don't have a clear picture but it's this one here:
View attachment 483926

I believe this one was 5/16-18. Since this one feeds directly on top of the shaft I didn't want to drill it a larger size so I opted to create an adapter to M5x0.8 (I bought a couple of M5x0.8 oil fittings as well). This gave me a chance to practice a bit on the lathe and mill. Luckily I have a set of cheap Vevor Imperial tap and dies which came in handy for the imperial outside thread. I don't have a lot of pictures of the process but I did take one picture while i was cutting the hex faces:
View attachment 483927

Finished product:
View attachment 483928

Not going to lie, I wished I had a smaller lathe to be able to work on smaller parts like this xD

All installed with the fitting:
View attachment 483929

I installed the metering units I got to try them out:
View attachment 483933

Metering units have different flows and I'm not an expert on them (I only learned about them when I was restoring my Bridgeport) and different companies have different numbers (like Bijur). Since I got mine from Aliexpress I tried to follow their instructions. The ones I am using are rated from 1 to 5 and unless I'm mistaken each increment in number is double the flow. I tried to use the manual to get an understanding of what flow to get and basically opted for DTC1 (or flow 1) for the majority of the oiling points. However for the 2 oiling points near the hand wheel for the head feed I opted for DTC2 and finally for the saddle lead screw I opted for DTC3 (as this one is the only one that is oiled daily according to the manual).
I gave the pump a couple of 'pumps' and immediately noticed that a lot of oil is coming out from the DTC3 and 2 and obviously not a lot from DTC1 points which is a bit concerning - kinda makes sense though because most of the pressure is relieved by the DTC3 and thus not a lot goes to the others. I have since ordered a few more metering units (two DTC1 and one DTC2) to be able to play around and see what works best.

1/8" BSP probably.

 

[Pawcu]

1/8" BSP probably.

Shoot should have tried that yes.... Would have been much simpler than tapping them xD

 

[RichardM]

1/8" BSP probably.

Maybe 3/8 unf as it's used on hydraulic fittings.

 

[Pawcu]

Maybe 3/8 unf as it's used on hydraulic fittings.

So many different threads haha I need more thread checkers

 

[RichardM]

Oohhh more tools to buy.

 

[Pawcu]

Oohhh more tools to buy.

Exactly haha xD

 

[Pawcu]

After the pump fiasco I decided to take another break from the coolant tank. So I turned my attention back to the automatic oiler. As mentioned in my previous posts, I am still waiting for some angle fittings and replacement metering units. However I could start plumbing up some of the fittings that I have installed:

Angled gearbox housing?

Gearbox housing below the column lead screw:

Below the column hand wheel

Dog clutch mechanism for the powered column rise and fall:

First started with the column leadscrew:

Not sure how the nylon pipe will fair here under 'constant' movement (the leadscrew housing rides up and down with the column)

Quickly plumbed up the fittings on the back of the machine - tried to keep the pipes as tidy as possible:

Started doing the pipes for the remaining fittings and ran out of nylon hose - must have miscalculated the length somehow - so ordered more and waiting for them to arrive before continuing (still need the other fittings and metering units anyways):

 

[Pawcu]

With progress on the automatic oiling haltered, I turned my focus back on the pump. The paint on the motor body housing had started to peel off in certain places so gave it a good wire wheel brush:

In the meantime I also cleaned up and sanded the main mounting plate - I removed the bracket that was holding the old contactors for the pump as these are now not required anymore since I will be running it from the auxiliary VFD:

Because it had some pitting and rust, I decided to give it a coat of rust convertor - first it turned dark blue/purple and after letting it sit for a while and wiped off the excess, left this brownish colour. Not sure if this is what should happen:

Decided to plough forward nonetheless and gave the pump and plate a coat of red oxide:

The old gasket between the motor housing and pump body had torn when I was taking them apart so made a new one out of gasket paper:

All assembled - kind looks like the pump is giving me the finger (after all the troubles that it gave me feels like so as well):

That's as far as I have made it on the pump. Will need to test it for leaks in the coming weeks to make sure that the joint is holding well before assembling it further in the machine.

 

[Pawcu]

From watching a bunch of Youtube videos about working J&S machines, I realised that most of them have a sort of tray that catches the coolant from table before draining it into the coolant tank/pump unit - which mine didn't have. Yes I could do with out and just connect a hose directly to the table port, but that kinda looks 'unprofessional' and I would rather have it set up the way it should. This is what I am talking about:

It's more visible in this video:

Should be easy to replicate. Started with a piece of galvanised trunking my dad had lying around. The material was pretty thin (less than or around 1mm) so I knew I had to be careful because of blow out when welding the ends. So I turned down my mig welder to the lowest setting and connected it to an extension (this reduces the power slightly because of the current drop). First weld - please be kind I haven't welded in quite a while and especially on thin materials:

After grinding down:

I noticed a couple of pin holes and decided to weld it from the inside - big mistake - made a poopy mess:

Nothing to do but embrace it. I tried to grind them down with a cheap carbide but didn't manage to make good progress and gave up.

Was a bit more careful on the other side:

After grinding down:

Inside doesn't look too bad:

 

[Pawcu]

I needed a way to mount it and I think the original mounted where the rear guards mount on the saddle. Started with a piece of flat bar and drilled 2 holes in it:

Welded it to the 'tray' - more **** welds incoming:

I needed a drain hole with a tube - simple enough - these welds came ok-ish I guess?

Test fitted:

To give it a good fighting chance of not leaking, I gave it a liberal coat of RTV on the edges where I welded - noticed some squeeze out of some tiny pinholes as I was doing this so this was definitely a good idea:

After letting it dry for a few hours, gave it a quick coat of hempel zinc phosphate primer - my dad always said that this is better for galvanized steel

 

[Pawcu]

I gave it a few days to dry, and then proceeded to paint it using the gunmetal blue paint I have:

It's not perfect and it won't win any beauty competitions but hopefully it doesn't leak - guess I should have tested it before assembling it...
I put an angled fitting on the end of the table drain so that the water doesn't splash around as much - I don't currently own a 3/8 pipe cutting die so I just drilled the threads out to match the diameter of the pipe and then 'glued' it with RTV:

In the meantime I also was looking for a hose for my dust extractor. Unfortunately I couldn't find proper ones locally and the ones from abroad cost quite a bit to ship. To be honest not sure what hose is deal for this scenario considering the sparks. My ironmongery had a cheapish AC hose that is normally used for blowing air through not vacuum - not ideal but wanted to give it a try:

Unless I block the input vent, the hose holds up pretty well and doesn't seem to crush under vacuum. Will see how it holds over time... not sure how it will hold to the sparks... will keep a fire extinguisher handy for sure.
I was thinking how best to mount it so it's out of the way - turns out a piece of rope and a piece of cardboard to 'smooth' the curve work pretty well:

 

[Pawcu]

Once again I ran out of other jobs to do on the grinder itself... I guess it was time to face the coolant tank again

This is the state of bottom compartments - not sure what the heck is growing in there:

I decided to stop being a wuss about it, got a scraper and started removing as much crud as possible. Top ones cleaned 'easily' enough:

Then turned my attention to the bottom compartments. The one where the pump was, was a bit easier to work on due to having multiple access points:

The others not as much... they're a bit deep and not fun working on them without getting super filthy - but I managed-ish:

That's as much as I could get out with a scraper. This is some (not all) of the crud that I removed:

Doesn't look pleasant and definitely doesn't smell nice either.

It was time to get my friend roped in for help again - needed to take it a car wash for pressure washing and wasn't going to manage to load it and unload it by myself. He brought another friend with him and all 3 of us went on our way. I made sure to give a good spray with heavy degreaser - used a combination of engine degreaser I had laying around for years and also Super Mafrasol - both worked really well especially the latter one. Unfortunately I don't have photos of me getting filthy and wet from powerwashing and getting sprayed on with splashback - both of my friends were too busy laughing at me and the whole situation.
I did manage to miss a few spots (pretty hard to see and miss areas when you're drenched) but it turned out mostly ok:

Obviously the worse areas are the compartments at the bottom.

 

[Pawcu]

I left it to dry and this weekend I then focused on getting as much loose paint and rust off as possible. Once again the top compartments were fairly easy but the bottom ones not so much.
Moreover I also noticed that I had a couple of rust holes after cleaning - ideally I would have replaced the whole panel but I didn't have any 3mm sheet metal at hand so I decided to try the quickest way out - drilled them out and welded them back up:

After grinding down as best as I could:

Not sure how these will hold but I guess time will tell.
I then gave it a good grinding and wire wheel - neighbours must love me by now:

This is the dust I swept after I finished: